(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure of an optical disc apparatus, and more particularly to a structure for discharging an optical disc at a time of an emergency, that is, carrying out an emergency eject.
(2) Description of Related Art
As a prior art in association with the present invention and a technique described in patent documents, for example, there are techniques described in JP-A-6-180918 (patent document 1), JP-A-2004-310813 (patent document 2) and JP-A-2007-220276 (patent document 3). In JP-A-6-180918, as a structure for picking up a cartridge of a recording medium from an apparatus at a time of an emergency (for an emergency eject), there is described a structure moving a final gear detachably engaging with a rack provided in a horizontal moving portion in an axial direction by a moving member so as to detach an engagement with the rack portion. In JP-A-2004-310813, there is described a structure pressing a slider member 31 by an emergency pin P at a time of carrying out an emergency eject so as to cancel an engagement between a worm gear 22 fixed to a rotation output shaft of a loading motor and a double gear 23 driven by the worm gear 22, push a gear member 36 by the emergency pin P in the canceled state, backward move a rack main body 34 via a double gear 38 and oscillate a discharge lever 17, thereby discharging an optical disc, in a disc apparatus. Further, in JP-A-2007-220276, there is described a structure pushing up a gear 305c in an axial direction via a gear moving portion 630 of a cancel lever 600 by a pin 700 so as to detach from a rack 355, at a time of carrying out an emergency eject, canceling an engagement between the gear 305c and the rack 355, and manually operating a main slider 350, in an optical equipment apparatus.
The prior art described in the publication mentioned above is structured such as to cancel the engagement between the teeth of the rack and the teeth of the gear, and the engagement between the teeth of the worm gear and the teeth of the gear, at a time of carrying out a discharge of the disc at a time of an emergency (hereinafter, refer to as an emergency eject), and again set the teeth of the gears to the engaged state at a time when the emergency eject motion is thereafter finished and the apparatus is returned to an initial state. Accordingly, in particular, in the case of setting the teeth to the engaged state between the gears, there is a risk that the teeth are damaged due to a contact between head portions of the teeth before coming to the engaged state, and it is necessary to make a positional relation between both the teeth proper for obtaining a proper engaged state. Accordingly, it is necessary to accurately regulate a moving direction and a stop position of the gear which is moved for achieving the engagement. Further, at a time of carrying out the cancellation of the engagement, a space in a vertical direction to an axis of rotation of the gear is necessary as a space in which the gear moves, and it is thought that this tends to cause an increase of a dimension of the apparatus.